I Am The Local Atheist Read Online Free PDF Page A

and pretend that I was just another
random person on the street trying to avoid the far-reaching hands
of Christians everywhere. But something pulled me forward, like I
couldn’t avoid being sucked into the gaping mouth of something that
had spat me out once before and was now asking for a second go at
it.
    Temptation. It
asked so much of my soul.
    And I was one
who couldn’t resist.
    I stepped onto
the concrete courtyard. Lisa saw me as I passed through and around
the mingling bodies and waved a hand from where she stood to the
right of the church. I felt a buzz, that feeling of attachment for
someone that I hadn’t felt for a very long time. I waved back and
started directing my trajectory towards her but I began to notice
that there were a number of other people also coming up to her as
well.
    Suddenly I was walking a lot slower, watching as other people
offered their own bodies for hugs and she so willingly returning
the gesture. I thought of her standing by me at the art gallery,
fidgeting with her wine glass but not really looking at me much.
Her feet had always seemed to be moving backwards as if to keep
distance between us. Yet here she was extending her friendship to
people she had known for less than a year and all I had gotten was
a ‘hi’. Her arms reaching out in a sign of loving compassion were
not for me anymore, for her new friends – yes; for me – no. It was like I had done
nothing for her.
    She turned a
superficial smile towards me as I stepped up to her.
    “ Hi David”
    “ Hi Lisa.” I returned the smile.
    She flicked
the hair back from her eyes and crossed her arms tightly. “Cool day
isn’t it?”
    “ Yeah, yeah it is.” I put my hands in my pockets, fingering the
cellphone I barely even used.
    “ Hey, I’m real sorry bout the art gallery thing. Certainly
wasn’t what I thought it would be.”
    “ Nah. Me neither.”
    We used to visit art galleries together and make fun of the
abstract paintings by taking random guesses at what the artists
were trying to depict: “a bag of lollies,”
“mud,” “more mud,” “the Eiffel tower… in a
patch of mud,” “…surrounded by lollies…”
    “ What about this one?”
    “ A kitten on fire.”
    “ I don’t see the kitten.”
    “ That’s because it’s on fire.”
    “ Oh.”
    She was one of
the few people I had known in and out of church that I had been
able to do really stupid things with, without feeling like we were
stepping on anybody’s toes. ‘Only heathens like us’ I used to joke
before she joined the church and forever let go of her heathen
self. I missed that.
    “ Did you…?” She looked at me, unsure about what she wanted to
ask. I wondered if she was aware of what the paintings were trying
to portray.
    I shrugged my
shoulders. “I don’t know. I left. Didn’t like the way the artist
was being treated so I gapped it.”
    “ Yeah most everyone else did too.” Her arms gripped tighter to
themselves. “Anyway, I’m so glad you came. My friend Claire is
going to be singing a song today. It’s gonna sound awesome. You’ll
be so glad you came.”
    “ Cool.” I was really lost for words, and it looked like she
wasn’t particularly enjoying trying to think of things to talk to
me about either. She kept looking back at her friends and rejoining
their conversations and laughing at their jokes, occasionally
turning back to me and smiling broadly, almost expectantly, as
though she was trying desperately to acknowledge an old friendship,
but it just wasn’t working out the way that she had wanted it
to.
    I decided to
make it easier on both of us and said that I was going to go inside
now. She said “okay, see you in there.”
    The doors
beckoned. I walked through into a dark black corridor that led into
a room awash with light from immense windows at the side walls,
great beams of arching rafters rose to a centre point. So enamoured
by the heights above me, I stumbled into the pews next to me,
causing them to rub